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To enter the 400-year-old institution, Sayuki had to master a range of basic geisha skills such as the drum, tea ceremony, small talk and traditional dancing as well as her own specialist gei, meaning art or entertainment.

Sayuki plays the traditional bamboo flute, practising every day.

Sayuki, the characters of whose name mean "transparent happiness", made her debut at the geisha house in the Asakusa district of Tokyo on Dec 19, but still studies for several hours every day before spending the early evening putting on several layers of the thick, white make-up of the geisha, followed by a heavy ornamented wig and an exquisite kimono.

To mark her debut, Sayuki wore a powder-blue kimono with a white fringe and flecks of gold dust at the hem that belonged to her "okiya," or supervisor, and is worth around two million yen (£9,320).

She spent the entire day visiting more than 100 tea houses, restaurants and the homes of senior geisha.

She rode part of the way in a rickshaw, attracting the attention of tourists and local people in the narrow streets of one of the six remaining geisha districts in the capital.

"Throughout my training, I never got any extra help or breaks because I'm a foreigner," said Miss Graham.

"In fact, I was probably pulled up more frequently because my teachers or senior geisha forgot that I'm not word-perfect in Japanese.

"But on the day that it was decided I was going to make my debut, there was a 180 degree change and I became a member of the community, an insider," she said.

"It's an honour and I'm very proud to be accepted as the first Western geisha in Japan."

Several other women anthropologists and journalists, have written about the geisha world from the inside, but none has undergone the rigorous training required for the organisation that oversees the industry to grant them full geisha status.

In the period immediately before the New Year holidays, Sayuki was busy supervising banquets and parties at which she and her "sisters" poured sake, made sure that the guests' plates were always full and their cigarettes always lit.

A two-hour meal also invariably includes a performance of dancing and music, often based around the shamisen, or three-stringed lute.

Sayuki will earn around 30,000 yen (£140) for the two-hour engagement before moving on to the next appointment of the evening.

And while the geisha is the first to admit that the job is well paid, she points out that her classes can cost as much as 100,000 yen (£465) a month and a new kimono can cost the price of a car.